Curious villagers followed Li Ying along the beach. Not far away, they vaguely saw a dark shadow.
A few brave fishermen tightened their grips on their fish spears and took a few cautious steps forward. They surrounded the shadow in the middle, then turned to Li Ying in great alarm and shouted, "Boss Li, come and take a look quickly. There's... a monster here!"
Li Ying walked forward unhurriedly and casually cast her eyes on the shadow.
"What a strange thing! It looks like a big fish head..."
"Where could such a big fish head come from! Besides, the creature that could eat such a huge strange fish and leave only its head must be a deadly sea monster! What if it attacks our village?"
Looking at the strange thing lying on the beach, the villagers were all talking at once, and a look of hesitation appeared on each of their faces.
When Li Ying saw the shadow clearly, a look of surprise flashed across her face, and then she showed a faint look of understanding.
"Everyone need not worry. This fish is indeed rare, but it's not a ferocious creature."
Li Ying recognized clearly that this so - called "strange fish" was clearly a stranded sunfish.
Although she didn't know why this sunfish, which usually lived in the deep sea, had come to the shallows. Such a situation was rare, but occasional occurrences were still within the realm of reason.
She gave a few quiet instructions, and then some villagers carried over the knocked - over bamboo poles. Li Ying casually picked up two pieces of broken seaweed scraps to examine. Sure enough, the tooth marks on them matched those of the sunfish.
Upon closer inspection of the sunfish, small wounds could be seen, with some broken bamboo splinters in them.
It seemed that for some unknown reason, this sunfish had accidentally become stranded in the seaweed farm. Although the big fish had struggled hard and bitten off many young seaweed shoots, it had finally managed to break free, but in the end, it had died on the beach.
The villagers on the island had never heard of a "sunfish". But seeing Li Ying so certain and repeatedly assuring them that this fish was just oddly shaped and not an inauspicious thing, they finally let down their guard.
"Brothers, let's work harder. Let's carry this strange fish away and set up those bamboo poles again. Don't let Boss Li down!"
A few people were afraid of being slow and making Li Ying unhappy. They shouted in unison and rushed forward, but Li Ying waved her hand and smiled.
"Don't be in a hurry to dispose of it. This sunfish is really a rare find. Since it's stranded on our beach, it's here, so it might as well stay. It destroyed our seaweed shoots, so it has to satisfy our appetites."
She spoke so reasonably, but the fishermen and villagers stared at her in disbelief.
Eat... this strange fish?
Not only had no one on the island ever seen such a thing, but from a distance, they could smell a strong fishy smell, which seemed to be mixed with an indescribable, filthy smell like that of a chamber pot.
Could this really be edible?
Li Ying calmly rolled up her sleeves, picked up a kitchen knife, and right there in full view of everyone, skillfully began to cut up the fish.
Such a novel scene was something the villagers had never seen before. Soon, they surrounded her tightly in layers, holding their breaths and watching her.
The part of the sunfish with the strongest strange smell was the fish skin, which also had a lot of hard - to - swallow sand on it. After gutting the fish, it had to be carefully removed.
The fish meat was white, tender, and soft, with hardly any blood. It was slippery and looked like a huge piece of coconut meat. As long as it was blanched in boiling water, the remaining strange smell would disappear.
This fish meat could be cut into thin slices, served with ginger, vinegar, and shredded scallions, and squeezed with some fresh lime. It was great with wine, and it was as smooth as a baby's soft skin in the mouth.
The other half was cut into large pieces and cooked in the most common fishermen's way, braised with thick soy sauce.
When it was taken out of the pot, a handful of lemongrass and ginseng leaves cut into small sections were sprinkled on it. The faint medicinal smell added an indescribable wonderful fragrance.
Every mouthful of the soft fish meat was stewed to melt in the mouth. A few villagers, following Li Ying's instructions, divided the dishes into small portions, put them in sand pots, and carried them out to generously let the onlookers taste.
The sunfish was huge in size, but its meat was only mediocre at best. People were just eating it for novelty.
But the rarest part was the long, white fish intestine.
Although it was an internal organ, the fish intestine had almost no strange smell. As long as it was carefully cut open with some coarse salt, the mucus inside and outside was washed away repeatedly, and then stir - fried quickly, it would taste very crispy and refreshing, like pork tripe or beef aorta, but with a bit more freshness and less greasiness.
Even the thick fish skin that was finally cut off became a rare delicacy after being patiently blanched and scraped clean. It had a chewy texture. Cut into thin shreds and dressed with Li Ying's special lime vinegar, each mouthful was refreshing and appetizing. When chewed carefully, one could even taste the clear flavor of seaweed from the translucent fish skin.
Li Ying made these dishes skillfully. Soon, many tourists on vacation on the island heard the news and naturally helped themselves.
Although the dishes in Li's Restaurant were delicious, after staying for more than a month, people would inevitably feel a bit bored.
Just at this moment, the fishing village had launched a new entertainment project, "hot air balloon rides". Moreover, everyone had seen Li Ying skillfully cut up this strange fish that they had never heard of or seen before. Naturally, they all thought about staying a few more days.
Li Ying smiled. She was used to the diners' praise for her cooking skills, but her left eyelid kept twitching for no reason, which made her feel quite uneasy.
As far as she knew, no one in the world had the ability to send a huge sunfish to the seaweed farm just to ruin her business.
If it wasn't man - made disaster, could it be a natural disaster?
If a sunfish was stranded once in a while, the villagers wouldn't worry too much.
But if it happened two or three times...
She frowned slightly and looked up, just meeting Lu Xunguang's worried eyes in the crowd.
She didn't say a word, but he understood her immediately and nodded at her without hesitation.
Li Ying was the kind of person who always got to the bottom of things. The stranding of this big fish today was really strange. He would have to accompany her to go out to sea and find out what was going on.
If there really was something strange, since their livelihoods all depended on the ocean, they should prepare for it as soon as possible.